Massachusetts Export Center Brought International Seafood Buyers to New
Bedford

Seafood
buyers from all corners of the world visited New Bedford on Tuesday, February
26th, to meet with some of the area’s leading seafood companies. Fifteen seafood
buyers, mainly from Europe and Asia, visited the Whaling City Seafood Auction
and four New Bedford seafood companies before attending a seafood industry
luncheon featuring New Bedford Mayor Scott W. Lang and Dr. Kevin Stokesbury of
the UMass School for Marine Sciences and Technology. Countries represented by
buyers on the tour included Belgium, Bulgaria, China, France, Korea, Mexico,
Poland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey and Serbia.

The international visitors were in Massachusetts for the 2008
International Boston Seafood Show. Food Export USA, a non-profit export
promotion organization, sponsored the visit of the foreign buyers specifically
to promote northeastern U.S. seafood exports. Food Export USA also partnered
with local export development organizations, led by the Massachusetts Export Center, to introduce the buyers to
local seafood suppliers.

The tour represented the fourth annual visit of international
seafood buyers to the New Bedford area organized by the Massachusetts Export
Center, part of the state’s Small Business Development Center Network. The
Export Center provides a broad range of services to Massachusetts exporters and
operates a New Bedford office based out of the New Bedford Area Chamber of
Commerce.

One of the companies featured on the tour both last year and
this year was Northern Wind, a leading supplier of scallops and
other seafood products. “Our participation in the annual international seafood
buyers tour has helped our export business tremendously. We have met European
buyers to whom we would not have had access otherwise, and we had the
opportunity to show these buyers our products and capabilities firsthand. The
result has been a marked increase in our export sales to Europe,” said Rick
Marino, Vice President of Sales at Northern Wind.

“New Bedford is home to some of the most innovative seafood
processing companies in the country, and we are delighted that international
seafood buyers return to the city year after year. It reaffirms New Bedford’s
place as a world-class seafood port,” said Paula
Murphy, director of the Massachusetts Export Center.